US starts the raging twenties declaring war on Iran

There cannot be a more startling provocation against Iran than what happened in Baghdad last Friday when the U.S. committed the unpardonable crime of murdering the Islamic Republic’s top military general, Qasem Soleimani, says Brazilian investigative journalist Pepe Escobar in his analysis from Palermo, Sicily, for ‘Asia Times’, titled: “US starts the Raging Twenties declaring war on Iran”.

It does not matter where the green light came from for the U.S. targeted assassination of Quds Force Commander Lt.-Gen. Qasem Soleimani and the Hashd ash-Sha’bi second in command Abu Madhi al-Muhanddis.

This is an act of war. Unilateral, unprovoked and illegal.

President Trump may have issued the order. Or the U.S. Deep State may have ordered him to issue the order.

According to my best Southwest Asia intelligence sources, “Israel gave the U.S. the coordinates for the assassination of Qasem Soleimani as they wanted to avoid the repercussions of taking the assassination upon themselves.”

It does not matter that Trump and the Deep State are at war.

One of the very few geopolitical obsessions that unite them is non-stop confrontation with Iran – qualified by the Pentagon as one of the five top threats against the US, almost at the level of Russia and China.

And there cannot be a more startling provocation against Iran – in a long list of sanctions and provocations – than what happened in Baghdad. Iraq is now the preferred battleground of a war against Iran that is likely to metastasize into a hot war, with devastating consequences.

We knew it was coming. There were plenty of rumbles in Israeli media by former War and Mossad officials. There were explicit threats by the Pentagon. I discussed it in detail in Umbria recently with analyst Alastair Crooke – who was extremely worried.

The inevitable escalation by Washington was being discussed until late Thursday night here in Palermo, actually a few hours before the strike. Sicily, by the way, in the terminology of US generals, is AMGOT: American Government Occupied Territory.

Once again, the Exceptionalist hands at work show how predictable they are. Trump is cornered by impeachment. Benjamin Netanyahu has been indicted. Nothing like an external “threat” to rally the internal troops.

Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei knows about these complex variables. Not surprisingly he already announced, on the record, there will be blowback: “A forceful revenge awaits the criminals who have his blood and the blood of other martyrs last night on their hands.” Expect it to be very painful.

I met Muhanddis in Baghdad two years ago – as well as many Hashd ash-Sha’bi members. Here is my full report. The Deep State is absolutely terrified Hashd ash-Sha’bi, because it is a grassroots organization like the Hezbollah of Lebanon. Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Sistani, the supreme religious authority in Iraq, universally respected, fully supports them.

So the American strike also targets Sistani – not to mention the fact that Hashd ash-Sha’bi operates under guidelines issued by the Iraqi Prime Minister Abdel Mahdi. That’s a major strategic blunder that can only be pulled off by amateurs.

Major General Soleimani, of course, humiliated the whole of the Deep State over and over again – and could eat all of them for breakfast, lunch and dinner as a military strategist. It was Soleimani who defeated Daesh in Iraq – not the Americans bombing Raqqa to rubble. Soleimani is a superhero of almost mythical status for legions of young Hezbollah supporters, the Ansarallah Movement of Yemen, all strands of resistance fighters in both Iraq and Syria, Islamic Jihad in Palestine, and all across Global South latitudes in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

There’s absolutely no way the U.S. will be able to maintain troops in Iraq, unless the nation is re-occupied en masse via a bloodbath. And forget about “security”: no imperial official or imperial military force is now safe anywhere, from the Levant to Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf.

The only redeeming quality out of this major strategic blunder cum declaration of war may be the final nail in the coffin of the Southwest Asia chapter of the U.S. Empire of Bases. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif came out with an appropriate metaphor: The “tree of resistance” will continue to grow. The empire might as well say goodbye to Southwest Asia.

In the short term, Tehran will be extremely careful in its response. A hint of – harrowing – things to come. As in hitting the Exceptionalist framework – and mindset – where it really hurts. This is how the Roaring, Raging Twenties begin: not with a bang, but with the release of whimpering dogs of war.

SS